Sylvia's Journal

It is September 11 here and the day went by as if nothing happened 9 years ago. The thought hit me, when I looked up towards the top of the Bourj Khalifa that exploding such a tall building would be impossible. Everyone thought so in New York also; now it is possible and I imagined whether it would be possible here. Somehow I think not. Nine/eleven remains entirely American, unfortunately.

At a more personal level we are experiencing old age with its accompanying health problems in ways we would never have imagined. Our one day in Dubai was partially taken up by healthcare inquiries. We spent several hours researching whether a gallbladder can be safely removed in Dubai, whether the insurance pays for it and how to manage this when you don’t live here.

We visited the American Hospital of Dubai. It was closed for the holiday weekend but gave us enough confidence, just by the look of it, that Axel can imagine having his gall bladder taken out there in the next few months.I also discovered that it has one of four worldwide joint replacement centers of excellence (Holland, Spain and Britain being the other three). This may come in handy as my knees, long known to be bone grating on bone, are increasingly painful.

We are staying in a fancy hotel, exquisitely decorated, expensive for walk-ins, less so through booking.com. There is much competition for hotel guests in Dubai and we benefit as a result. It has a glass enclosed bathtub in the middle of the room and a TV rotunda that can be turned so you can watch TV from the bed, the tub or the toilet.

It is also at a stone’s throw of a Disney-like complex of old Arab souks and fortresses, the largest building in the world and one of the largest shopping malls in the world.

We hit the peak of the Eid shopping frenzy with tens of thousands of people from all over the world converging for the ultimate shopping experience. Strange enough, we ran into my colleague Peter and his wife who took advantage of a long holiday week to escape Kabul for a bit.

It is still too hot to walk around outside and malling is thus the only option other than staying in one’s air-conditioned hotel room. We ate well and marveled at everything that can be had here, for a price.

We also admired how the young Dubai women have managed to turn the drab black abaja into more of a gift wrap, richly decorated, slightly transparent offering hints of what is hidden beneath. It is actually quite clever how they have managed to make their cloaks into fashion statements without violating the principal idea.

I finally had my foot massage that I so badly wanted in Enkhuizen, from a young Philippino woman who is supporting her community back home with her salary, getting people clothes, healthcare and school fees. Living here is difficult but the money is good and in a mega mall like this (the Dubai Mall) the demand for foot massages, from men and women alike, is never in doubt.

We had some idea of mussels by the ocean, after climbing the tallest man-made structure in the world, but we ended up in the Dubai (do buy) mall the entire day. We tried out the metro which turned out, at the end of the day, not a good deal because it is not synchronized with the mall closing. Taxis are cheaper, maybe because they are driven by people who don’t earn that much.

The Bourj Khalife had just opened when we travelled through here in January this year. At that time it seemed more of a symbol of Dubai extravagance than anything else. But today we had the full experience: from vision to reality, the architectural ideas, drawn from a flower that looks like a trillium, sketched then drawn, then competed, redesigned, tested and finally built. There were pictures of the mason and the master architect, the art designer and the carpenter, the project manager and the package manager – all smiling into the camera, life size, presumably after the project was completed. I am sure they weren’t smiling all throughout the design and construction phase.

At the top of the structure, or at least the highest point where tourists are allowed, we watched the dusty skies. Computer screens showed the view for day and for night, as well as the life view, which wasn’t all that clear, so we opted for the programmed view from another day, clearer than today.

All the time we were so high up there I thought of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the people jumping to escape the inferno for another form of death. I was glad to be back on the ground.

We found a fast food fish place (Nordsee) that actually had baguettes with herring – not exactly like Dutch herring but close enough. After that we malled and malled for hours, testing macchiato here, ice cream there, marvelling at the variety of choices, the freedom of walking around uncovered, the absence of guns, blast walls, razor wire and sand bags and the cleanliness. With the amount of money generated from war, poppies and international aid, Afghanistan could surely create something like this?

When we had tired of malling we watched a local movie about arab men with too much money, colliding with a poor Indian cab driver dreaming of a Bollywood career and an eastern European flight attendant in trouble. It ended OK for most of them except the spoiled rotten Arab men, one died and the other was wrecked by guilt and drank himself silly on forbidden whiskey which made his dad very mad; but then he found religion which, I presume, made his dad very glad.

After dinner we found a cold beer-serving Thai restaurant that looked out over the Bourj fountains. For the price of putting up with the moist 36 degree air, we had a front row seat to a most spectacular musical water ballet, with a new show every 20 minutes. We watched it from one side with our Thai food, and then later from the other side of the lake with coffee and dessert. So that was Dubai, Holland is next.

It was a dusty ride out of Kabul and into Dubai. Someone other than Captain Courtney was piloting us to Dubai but the chief flight attendant and I recognized each other from my cockpit ride 6 weeks ago.

I was driven from the airport to my dayroom on Dubai Creek in a Lady Taxi (pink stripe on car) by a Sri Lankan lady all dressed in pink and white, the company uniform for female drivers. It included a white gauzy veil that was much too warm for Dubai. In her native Sri Lanka there was no veil and there was rain, lots of rain during monsoon time.

Still, she liked it here because of the money (lady fares are 20% higher than male fares). She had started out as a housemaid for an Iranian family and had decided that this was not a good form of employ. She took driving lessons and told me proudly she was licensed now. Because of her previous Iranian employer we could communicate also in broken Farsi.

I am staying in a hotel that is populated by Africans, many with small children. I am curious about why they are here. I have a small balcony with teak garden furniture that looks out over the Creek, exactly as I had hoped.

After completing my presentation for the conference I walked, in spite of the heat, along the quiet Dubai Creek. Weekend in Dubai transforms the place. Instead of the frantic activity of loading and unloading wares from everywhere on and off their boats, the dhow hands were languishing in whatever shade they could find.

I had planned to cross to the other side and eat a Lebanese lunch but the cold coconut milk, fresh from the nut, and the jumbo prawns offered by a small sidewalk cafe kept me on this side. Afterwards I made a quick stop at the spice souk where I found most shops closed for Friday prayers, except for one. I found the one spice I haven’t been able to get in Kabul, star anise, and surprised the Iranian shopkeeper with my ability to communicate with him in his native language, Farsi. It seems that if you don’t speak Arabic, Farsi can take you a long way in Dubai.

Got my middle seat changed to window – things are lightening up.

We arrived in Dubai with a planeload of the kind of men you don’t want to anger: crew cuts, biceps and jackets with a lot of pockets. My neighbor was watching a gun show on his portable DVD player. This is the problem with the security and military industry: you add testosterone to testosterone, a flammable mix, even before you add drugs and guns. I suppose the only good thing is that alcohol is not allowed.

We breathed deeply on arrival, even though the air was humid or air conditioned. When we stepped of the plane I was finally able to relax – this is the problem with stress, you don’t notice it until its source is removed.

By the time we arrived at our hotel we were too pooped to get back into a taxi to find the restaurant I had been fantasizing about and so we stayed in.

We ate a late dinner at the Bedouin bar & Restaurant. Axel’s Bedouin burger with turkey bacon was good, my prawn risotto less so, mostly because of the pieces of mystery meat (looked like Spam but how could that be?) that floated in the soupy risotto, side by side the shrimp.

We drunk each half a liter of ice cold draught Tiger beer which constituted about half the bill of the overpriced meal, but who cared? We were free and on vacation.

I marveled at women sitting at a table next to ours. They were out on their own; imagine that, without male companions, and without veils, and drinking wine! To find this very ordinary scene so extraordinary makes me realize in what a distorted world we live.